What the weather forecast looks like in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Oct 25, 2018

I grew up watching the weather forecast in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Where it is
called “previsão do tempo”, which is the literal translation
in Portuguese.

This post contains some recent screen shots of the weather forecast as it is
presented in one of the main TV channels, as well as some screenshots from an
online video of other local institutions that either provide the forecast, or
help running the NWP models.

Globo

Globo is the main TV channel. When I was younger, it was also the main source
of news and weather forecast. That, or you would have to open the newspaper and
look for the forecast summary.

Climatempo

Later with Internet, I started using Climatempo. That was before smartphones if I recall.
Elevators in most buildings have small LCD TV’s with ads, and in the subway and buses too.
They normally display the weather by Climatempo.

They have an online channel with some videos, but I still prefer the presentation from the
main TV channels’ forecasters.

Notes

Brazil’s NWP is driven by INPE (National Institute
for Space Research) and its division CPTEC
(The Center for Weather Forecasts and Climate Studies).

The Brazilian member of WMO is INMET
(National Meteorological Institute), which contains datasets. Not sure what’s
the relationship between CPTEC and INMET…

These departments provide some videos, but not with the same frequency as
the TV channels and other institutions. They are also not well known amongst
most locals (or at least their roles is not well advertised).

Most people nowadays use just their phones, relying on the forecast
from AccuWeather, and occasionally check the forecast online or via the
TV channels.

A small footnote. I have the impression that most forecasters are women, though
there are some famous “man of weather” as they are called locally, known for
being so long providing forecasts.

Conclusion

There are so many channels, so many newspapers, and so many websites and apps
in Brazil. There is no consensus on the presentation of the weather, but the
main players provide technology with high quality.

They use live cameras, choppers, maps with many layers, icons, colours, display
minimum and maximum temperature, as well as precipitation. There is normally no
high precision forecast (the interval is the same for all days of the week,
even today), nor the indication of the confidence of the model.

There are also other players that provide forecast for army, government, farmers,
companies, etc.